Thousands of participants? Wow. I guess even an entire community is capable of participating in massive terror and disaster drills.

Here are some quotes and a link to a news story about a drill that was funded by Homeland Security (actually through grants, but those grants were used for this exercise).

The Hernando County Sheriff's Office, Spring Hill Fire Rescue and Hernando County Emergency Management held an Active Shooter Training Exercise.

The drill was paid for through a $38,000 state homeland security grant. Much of it went to pay for Patriot Services, a Detroit-based emergency consulting agency, according to the sheriff's office.

Lillibridge said the lessons learned from past school shootings - like the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colo. - was that law enforcement "can't sit around and wait," Lillibridge said.

"Our response was a lot like every other response, only at a much greater scale," said Lt. Matt Lillibridge, who supervised the drill for the sheriff's office.

"It was amazing how we got into it," said Jan Yost, an ESE teacher at the school who also volunteered. "It started to feel real. We got caught up in the action

In all, there were 17 victims who had to be hospitalized. The two gunmen were killed by deputies, according to the scenario.

Thousands of participants? Wow. I guess even an entire community is capable of participating in massive terror and disaster drills.

Here are some quotes and a link to a news story about a drill that was funded by Homeland Security (actually through grants, but those grants were used for this exercise).

The Hernando County Sheriff's Office, Spring Hill Fire Rescue and Hernando County Emergency Management held an Active Shooter Training Exercise.

The drill was paid for through a $38,000 state homeland security grant. Much of it went to pay for Patriot Services, a Detroit-based emergency consulting agency, according to the sheriff's office.

Lillibridge said the lessons learned from past school shootings - like the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colo. - was that law enforcement "can't sit around and wait," Lillibridge said.

"Our response was a lot like every other response, only at a much greater scale," said Lt. Matt Lillibridge, who supervised the drill for the sheriff's office.

"It was amazing how we got into it," said Jan Yost, an ESE teacher at the school who also volunteered. "It started to feel real. We got caught up in the action

In all, there were 17 victims who had to be hospitalized. The two gunmen were killed by deputies, according to the scenario.